Common Sense and Independence

In January 1776, Thomas Paine,
a radical political theorist
and writer who had come to America from England in 1774,
published a 50-page pamphlet, Common Sense.
Within three
months, it sold 100,000 copies. Paine attacked the idea of
a hereditary monarchy, declaring that one honest man was
worth more to society than "all the crowned ruffians that
ever lived." He presented the alternatives -- continued
submission to a tyrannical king and an outworn government,
or liberty and happiness as a self sufficient, independent
republic. Circulated throughout the colonies, Common Sense
helped to crystallize a decision for separation.

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States. Jefferson also founded the University of Virginia and built one of America's most celebrated houses, Monticello, in Charlottesville, Virginia.(AP/WWP)

There still remained the task, however, of gaining each
colony's approval of a formal declaration. On June 7,
Richard Henry Lee
of Virginia introduced a resolution in
the Second Continental Congress, declaring, "That these
United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and
independent states. ..." Immediately, a committee of five,
headed by Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, was appointed to
draft a document for a vote.

Largely Jefferson's work, the Declaration of Independence,
adopted July 4, 1776, not only announced the birth of a new
nation, but also set forth a philosophy of human freedom
that would become a dynamic force throughout the entire
world. The Declaration drew upon French and English
Enlightenment political philosophy, but one influence in
particular stands out: John Locke's
Second Treatise on Government.
Locke took conceptions of the traditional
rights of Englishmen and universalized them into the
natural rights of all humankind. The Declaration's familiar
opening passage echoes Locke's social contract theory of
government:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure
these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to
alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its
powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to
effect their Safety and Happiness.

Jefferson linked Locke's principles directly to the
situation in the colonies. To fight for American
independence was to fight for a government based on popular
consent in place of a government by a king who had
"combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction
foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our
laws. ..." Only a government based on popular consent could
secure natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. Thus, to fight for American independence was to
fight on behalf of one's own natural rights.